Our Town - Form, structure and language - CCEA

• The play is a drama, not fitting the more specific theatrical definitions of comedy or tragedy. It is divided into three acts, something to which the Stage Manager actually draws the audience’s attention by naming each act for a stage of life – Daily Life, Love and Marriage, and the implied ‘Death’. This is to suggest the play itself is mirroring a general human life cycle.

• Our Town repeatedly ‘breaks the fourth wall’, meaning it refuses to conform to the standard idea that drama should be performed as though the performers do not know they are being watched. There is an invisible ‘wall’ between the onstage world and the audience, through which the audience can see and hear the performance without being seen or heard themselves. The breaking of this ‘wall’ happens mostly through the character of the Stage Manager, but also through scenes in which characters like Professor Willard or Mr Webb speak directly to the audience. Other characters speak to the Stage Manager, such as when Mrs Webb tells him that Mr Webb has cut his hand but will be along to talk to him in a moment. There are also actors within the theatre crowd who play audience members by asking questions in Act One, further blurring the lines between staging and reality. These are metatheatrical devices.

• The staging of the play is purposely in a minimalistic style rather than being a naturalistic (recognisably realistic) representation of the rooms, streets and shops where the action takes place. Instead of scenery and props made to represent the houses of the Webb and Gibbs families, houses are represented simply by one table and three chairs each, with an “arched trellis” for each back door and two ladders to show the upstairs level of each home. Sound effects are used throughout to indicate everyday sounds like milk bottles clinking, factory whistles and church bells, enriching the atmosphere without ever actually being seen on stage. The housewives in Act One mime the actions of making breakfast – lighting a stove, pulling window blinds and so on, while props such as Dr Gibbs’ medical bag and Joe Crowell’s thrown newspapers are also imagined, with the actors pantomiming their use. This choice to avoid detailed physical representations of reality being part of the play has several effects:

  • It helps the audience understand that drama is never the same as real life, even when it looks the same. This lack of artificial staging actually helps increase the focus on the characters’ speech, actions and emotions, making their emotional truth more real for the audience.

  • It also helps make the small, everyday details of life seem larger and more significant by showing them unrealistically, in ways the audience isn’t accustomed to seeing them, and drawing attention to them through this unusual representation.

  • The audience are highly aware they are watching a staged and unrealistic representation of lives that have already happened, which places them in the same spectator position as Emily when she watches her own past life in Act Three.

  • The lack of specific physical scenery and props makes the whole play seem more universal – the action could be taking place anywhere, in any town, just as every town is full of people living their lives each day.

Symbolism – “Blessed be the Tie that Binds”

The hymn features in all three acts of the play.

In Act One, the choir conducted by Simon Stimson are singing it at choir practice; in Act Two, the congregation begins to sing it just after Emily arrives on stage in her bridal outfit and panics at the thought of marrying – another “tie that binds”; in Act Three, the group by the grave at the funeral begin to sing it just before the now deceased Emily appears for the final time, and she remarks that it was her favourite hymn.

It is a symbol that marks these moments of life and death to emphasise the events that unify and strengthen a community.

Its lyrics are based around shared experience, underscoring the idea that human lives have more in common with each other than what separates them: “Our fears, our hopes, our aims are one / Our comforts and our cares.”

Symbolism – The Grover’s Corners Sentinel

The town newspaper, edited by Emily’s father Mr Webb, is seen being delivered in all three acts of the play, just as Howie Newsome delivers milk consistently in each act.

Its existence is therefore significant to the town – the Stage Manager suggests a copy of it will be included in the town’s time capsule. Yet there are several references to the fact that Grover’s Corners isn’t a particularly newsworthy place and offers little to actually write about.

The play itself is focused on small everyday occurrences and their importance in life – something that stands in opposition to the idea of ‘newsworthy events’, which are supposed to be unusual or important enough to cover and immortalise.

However, the fact the newspaper is itself a piece of that everyday life. Perhaps this cyclical relationship with the community – repeatedly writing about them and then being read about by the people who have been written about – is symbolic. That even the smaller events in a community are worth paying attention to.

The Stage Manager

The Stage Manager is a character but is also arguably a metatheatrical device through which Wilder delivers aspects of his message to the audience; the fact he is known only as the Stage Manager gives the impression he will be ‘managing’ or overseeing the entire production.

He is a kind of symbolic tour guide through the world of the play; he controls what we see and when, but does not control or change the actual events that happen and their outcomes – nor does he seem to want to change things.

His stance is largely one of observing and commenting on the nature of human lives, and in this way he is also like a chorus

He breaks the fourth wall, speaking directly to the audience and referring to events that have not ‘yet’ happened in the world of the play, such as the future death of Dr Gibbs. This gives him the power of an omniscientnarrator – one who knows all the different events and aspects of the story from an all-seeing point of view rather than an individual character’s perspective.

He briefly takes on roles within the play too, such as Mrs Forrest in Act One or the minister who marries Emily and George in Act Two.

He sets the scene (the first and last lines of the play are spoken by him), controls the pace (telling the Professor to hurry, for example) and introduces and dismisses various characters on stage. None of them are alarmed by his instructions but obey calmly, giving the sense that he is like a director within the world of the play.

He can control time (skipping Emily back to her twelfth birthday or jumping ahead to later in the evening within Act One) and place, moving the action from the Gibbs and Webb houses to the church on the day of the wedding; he even sets out the table and chairs that signify the two homes himself at the start of the play, ‘building’ the town itself for the audience.

He interprets events and adds his own philosophical comments to what is seen, giving a sense of overall wisdom and often benevolence towards the people of the town and their lives and deaths.

The ‘reveal’ of the death

For the audience, Act Three’s gradual reveal of Emily’s death – especially coming so soon after seeing her wedding take place on stage – is something of a shock, and is purposely structured that way for impact.

The ‘loss’ of the protagonist who was young, likeable and seemed to have a lovely future ahead of her is tragic for the audience. While the Stage Manager gently hinted earlier in the play that the third act would concern death, it is still a relatively unexpected event.

The inclusion of the deceased characters on stage shows they are still ‘with’ the town – a representation of the “something eternal” that the Stage Manager mentions – but they are no longer a part of it. While some characters comment on what they see and hear in the world of the living, their overall demeanour is one of being detached.

The appearance of Emily heightens the poignancy of her demise, and her unsettled behaviour contrasts with the other deceased characters who are more accustomed to their state.

It all sets the scene effectively for underscoring Emily’s realisation that the living do not value the small moments of life as they should – Wilder’s main message in the play.

This is not a list of every method or notable use of language and structure in Our Town.

Can you find any of the following in the play?

If you have found these methods, consider what you know about the play and the playwright already.

What effects do these methods create? Why has Wilder used them?

Use these questions to hone your knowledge of Our Town, and to practise using your notes and analysis in organised paragraphs that focus on how particular themes or ideas are shown in the play.

• How does Wilder use the character of the Stage Manager in Our Town?
• How does Wilder present families and family life in Our Town?
• How does Wilder present love and marriage in Our Town?
• What does the setting of Our Town show us about Wilder’s attitude to life in America?
• What dramatic methods does Wilder use to show his feelings about death in Our Town?

Below is a demonstration of how to use the material in this section to answer an example essay question. The answer below is not a full essay, but only an extract of a longer answer showing some of the points that could be made.

Q: How does Wilder use the character of the stage manager in Our Town?

A: Wilder’s 1938 play Our Town is a drama which focuses on ordinary, everyday life and the connections of family and community. This subject matter was partly informed by Wilder’s time studying Archaeology. Attending a dig and seeing artefacts that had been dear to families from hundreds of years ago made him realise there were threads of universal similarity in what people thought, felt and did, no matter what time period they lived in. This foundational idea for the play can be seen in the Act One reference the Stage Manager makes to ancient Babylon and how little is known of the everyday lives of its people. Wilder needed a way to show perfectly ordinary events on stage without boring or alienating the audience. So he uses the Stage Manager, who is certainly a character but is also arguably used as a metatheatrical device, ‘managing’ what the audience sees on stage and guiding them through the story. He is at various points like a director, a chaperone, a storyteller and even a philosopher. His unique placement and abilities in the play allow Wilder to better deliver his message about the value and significance of small moments in every individual life.

The fact he is known only as the Stage Manager gives the impression he will be ‘managing’ or overseeing the entire production. He is seen on stage before the play begins properly, watching the audience as they arrive, which immediately gives him a sense of awareness and presence that is unusual for characters in a more conventional play. He is the one who assembles the minimalist set, bringing chairs and tables onstage and arranging them to represent the Gibbs and Webb households. Furthermore, he does this in full view of the audience – it is almost as if he is ‘building’ the town itself, constructing the world in which the action will take place. After physically ‘building’ the town, he is also initially a symbolic tour guide who indicates different locations on stage – “Up here is Main Street… Here’s the grocery store…” – and explains what the town contains and where. He invites the audience to participate in this act of imagination, buying into the setting as he introduces it. Yet from the outset, he has acknowledged that he is aware that the audience is watching a play because he begins by introducing the real names of the actors appearing in it. The fact he breaks the fourth wall in this way means Wilder can use his character as a mediator between the audience and the world of the play. He is drawing attention to the fact that it is not real, and yet leads the audience through the world in a way that helps them begin to recognise the sort of place and people they will be observing.

This essay could go on to make the following points, backed up by evidence from the play and analysis/interpretation of that evidence:

• Wilder uses the Stage Manager as a kind of chorus to observe and comment on the action in the play. This gives the audience deeper insight into what is happening and allows them to see increased significance in the ‘everyday’ events they witness.
• Wilder gives the Stage Manager a wider and more powerful perspective than an individual character, giving him the status of an omniscient narrator. He can describe (or just hint at) future events – this allows the audience access to knowledge the characters do not have, and lets the audience see increased significance and poignancy in the characters’ everyday lives.
• Wilder allows the Stage Manager to control the pace and timing of the events on stage, manipulating time through flashbacks and bringing Emily back to her chosen day of life; the rearrangement of time allows events to be juxtaposed more closely, heightening their resonance for the audience
• Wilder does not let the Stage Manager control events themselves – he merely observes and comments on them, sometimes adding his own philosophical ideas. This shows a respect and reverence for people’s everyday lives and choices, highlighting the significance of these.
• Wilder allows the Stage Manager to summon and dismiss other characters, such as those who answer questions posed by the ‘audience’. The Stage Manager’s control of these aspects helps with pacing but also gives the audience an enriched sense of the town and its people. It draws their attention to particular aspects of everyday life that may otherwise seem small or lack impact.